


trust fall.

by freshbloom



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, based on the new final trailer!!!, basically me just crying over mileven, im gonna die, theyre so cute you guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 02:01:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19308358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freshbloom/pseuds/freshbloom
Summary: “But Mike, I need you to trust me.” And something about the way she says this, voice soft and languid, the way she sounds when it’s just the two of them, alone in her room, leaning in close and drinking each other in like sunlight, makes him feel like maybe, just maybe, she’ll be okay.Or,Me free forming that ‘i need you to trust me’ scene because it has me sobbing.





	trust fall.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [milevenhearteyes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/milevenhearteyes/gifts).



> my first fic in months!!! it’s a miracle!!! that final st trailer just SPARKED something in me and i sat down and couldn’t stop writing this once i started. it’s a lot of emotions, bc i was extremely emotional dksjsjs.
> 
> dedicated to my dear friend ellie;  
> i love you acquaintance, thank you for pushing me to write these past few months and for being so supportive. i owe you a lot, and even though this isn’t the fic i promised, it’s still something so. here. KDSJS i love you okay. i finished this before 2050 just for you.

He’s not sure if he’s alive.

 

He can feel his heart thrumming in his chest, but somehow it seems distant, like the ghost of a feeling, a phantom heart beating in tune to his memories of what a heart should be. He’s gone numb to everything, his own body feels strange and warped, like he’s moving through water, or quick sand.  He’s not really sure where he is, or what’s happening, but none of that really matters.  

 

All Mike can focus on is her. 

 

She’s sat beside him, but she’s looking down at the ground, speaking softly to the floor and fiddling with her hands. Her hair is longer, now, and she’s all soft eyes and lips, and cheeks dusted red. It’s angelic. She’s angelic. He can’t look at anything else, even if looking at her hurts, sometimes—like his insides are suddenly frayed and burning, and his heart is tripping and fumbling and scraping itself up against it’s own jungle gym of nerves. She makes him feel like a little kid again. Like sweet-toothed childlike wonder on perfumed Spring nights. Running around in the dark with Nancy, tumbling down a slide for the first time and and feeling his nerves tingle with euphoria, like he could fly right off the end and stay floating up there with the stars forever. He remembers one night, after he had stumbled around the park in dizzying circles, lying sprawled in the grass, his head in Nancy’s lap as she read to him. It was some fairytale book—a princess and a knight, thrilling adventures and true love. He doesn’t really remember the details, just that love—butterflies in your tummy, daydreamy giddiness, fireworks and a pounding heart—had sounded familiar, at the time. 

 

“Nance,” He’d said, interrupting her reading. “I think that love is like going down a slide, really, really, fast.” 

 

“Maybe,” She’d said, putting the book down beside her. “I can’t tell you for sure, Mikey.”

 

“Don’t you know?” 

 

“No silly,” She’d reached over to tousle his hair. “I’m not in love.”

 

“Will you tell me when you’re older?” Mike said, moving his head to look up at her. 

 

“Uh huh, I promise.” 

 

He doesn’t need Nancy to tell him. Looking at El now, his heart fluttering and on the verge of falling really, really fast, he know’s he’d been right. 

 

“Mike,” She’s saying. And he’s pulled back into her voice, into where he is right now. Nighttime. The cabin. The world outside splintering and showering them in debree. El, across from him, breathing next to him, but pulling away. Leaving. He can’t breathe. 

 

“Mike,” She says again. “I have to be the one to stop it. I messed up, last time.” Her voice is quivering, slightly, and he moves his hand to reach for her but she shifts over, and his hand falls limp across the back of the couch. El takes a deep breath, flitting her eyes in his direction briefly. She’s having trouble meeting his eyes for more than a few seconds and he’s having trouble pretending this doesn’t sting. 

 

“I closed the gate, but I—I didn’t save you, I didn’t save Will. I made it worse.” She’s crying now, tears falling fast across her face and Mike feels like he’s being split open and scraped raw. “It’s stuck here now, with us. And it’s my fault. So I have to stop it, and...” She pauses, squeezing her fingers together in her lap. Her knee is shaking ever so slightly, a tick he knows she’s picked up from him, and he wishes more than anything he could take that anxiety and add it to his own nerves, even if it kills him. But he doesn’t know how to fix this, fix her, and he’s terrified of what she’s about to say next—like he might take one look at her and die, or else hear her voice and seize up. 

 

“And Mike,” She whispers. “You have to let me.” Slowly, El turns her head to look at him—eyes hazy and flooded with tears, afraid of him and for him and he suddenly feels like he’s been doused with ice water. The world rushes back and it’s pressing down on him from everywhere, all at once. He knows what she’s saying to him. He doesn’t know what she’s saying to him. He’s bleeding from the inside out and thirteen again, terrified and feeling his hand slip out of her grasp, even though he’s not holding onto her, but  his palms are searing like an open wound and all he can think is: _not again_.

 

“No,” He says, voice forceful but lilted with fear. “No, El you—you can’t, you don’t have to—”

 

“But I do. I can do this, Mike.” She’s looking  at him fully, eyes meeting his defiantly and he half wishes she wouldn’t—it’s so much harder to be brave, to fight back, when all he has to look at is everything he has to lose. 

 

“It doesn’t matter, that’s—that’s not the point, you don’t have to do it all by yourself, El we’re all with you and—and Hopper—“ He’s panicking now, tripping over his words and forgetting how to string them together. _Not again not again not again_. 

 

“He knows that I’ll do what I have to do to keep everyone safe.” Her eyes flicker down at this, for only a second, but it’s enough to tell him how Hopper really feels. 

 

“You’re lying.” He’s shaking, with anger and nauseating fear, but he doesn’t care. All he cares about is making her stay, stay safe, stay with him. “El, he wouldn’t, I know he wouldn’t—“

 

“That doesn’t matter.” She spits out, voice forceful and so far away it’s like he’s hearing her through his old walkie. (It’s like last year all over again, talking to her and getting nothing, because she’s not there, she’s gone and all he has left are static radio waves.) He goes silent for a moment, mouth hung open and trying to remember what it feels like to be alive, to not be afraid. He doesn’t know how to be himself with this version of her. 

 

“What about me?” Mike finally says, quiet desperation dripping from his words.  “El, please, you can’t—you can’t leave me I...” He closes his eyes, braces himself against the world spinning, and when he opens them back up she’s crying again, biting her lip and trying hard not to let it show. He decides, then, that this is it. This is his last moment, his chance to love her, to let her know that she’s his entire universe, the star he looks for every night. Everything and nothing. She’s it for him, always, forever. 

 

“I love you, El. I need you to be safe.” He’s practically whispering in the sudden stillness of the cabin. The world has gone quiet, and he never really understood what it meant to feel like the only two people alive, but he does now. He doesn’t think there was ever a time before her and him, before that thunderstorm, before she saved him and left him and loved him. He doesn’t want to think about an after. There can’t be anything left, just him and her, her eyes on his, his knee brushing up against her leg on the couch, her beside him and keeping him afloat even as he’s drowning. Mike & El. 

 

“I love you, too.” She reaches over to grab his hand, now. It’s the first time he’s held her in days and it’s dizzying, like waking up after days spent asleep. He doesn’t ever want her to let go. “But Mike, I need you to trust me.” And something about the way she says this, voice soft and languid, the way she sounds when it’s just the two of them, alone in her room, leaning in close and drinking each other in like sunlight, makes him feel like maybe, just maybe, she’ll be okay. And he will too. And the world won’t swallow them both whole like it’s been threatening to for years. 

 

“Okay,” He breathes out finally. El visibly relaxes, her shoulders slumping and her face falling free of worried creases. She shifts closer to him, and Mike feels like he might be alive and whole again. She’s the only thing keeping him here. She’s all he’ll ever want. And he thinks some of what he’s feeling must be showing on his face, because she’s smiling now, lips drawn up only slightly but enough to make the night seem far less daunting, like he can face whatever storm it tries to drown him with, if only to have her smile at him again. Mike pulls her in, his arms wrapping around her waist, hers reaching up to circle around his neck. She’s holding him tight, squeezing him like she’s deathly afraid of letting go, like she’s trying to memorize the way he feels in her arms. All he can do is hold her back, burrowing his face into her neck and trying his hardest not to cry. She feels like the sun and warm honey and she’s his best friend, he can’t live without her. He won’t.

 

_I need you to trust me_. He does. But he doesn’t know how he can trust the world to bring her back to him. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhh so there it is!! please leave a comment and let me know how you think this scene will go! and also, a little fun fact, that scene about mike thinking love is like a slide is real dialogue from a conversation i once had with a little first grader <3 it was so pure i had to include it. 
> 
> until next time!!! happy season 3 watching y’all <3


End file.
